


Red in Tooth and Claw

by bluspirits



Category: Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Hellboy (2019)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Gen, Possession, Post-Canon, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23420830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluspirits/pseuds/bluspirits
Summary: As time goes on, the jaguar becomes stronger than Daimio.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	Red in Tooth and Claw

**Author's Note:**

> So this is set after the 2019 movie, but playing with the BPRD version of Daimio's jaguar, which in the comics is a giant red eldritch monstrosity. Here's a picture if you haven't seen it:
> 
> https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/6/67/Were_Jaguar_Ben_Daimio_%28Earth-5205%29.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20170208003800
> 
> I’m glad the movie shied away from eldritch horror daimio, because I’m still torn up about his end in the comics, but I’m also upset not to see the massive red horror that is BPRD daimio. So this is choppy and pointless, and certainly not right tone wise, but I had to get my feelings out somehow. The major character death tag is just to be cautious, its kind of more ambiguous.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy!

“As far as we can tell, it's some kind of ancient god. A world ender.”

Daimio’s eyes slide over to look at Hellboy without thinking. The demon doesn’t look back at him, clearly on purpose. His larger hand shifts where it rests on the table, fingers clenching. Daimio says nothing and turns his gaze back to the agent speaking. 

“The more you turn, the stronger it seems to be getting. It’s going to be harder and harder to control your transformations. To turn back. I’m sure you’ve felt that already,” he says, gesturing at Daimio, and it’s the ultimate cruelty to expect him to answer right now. He simply nods. 

“We recommend that you don’t allow the jaguar out for the foreseeable future. And honestly, avoid stressors altogether.”

And that’s all there is to say. The man picks up some papers from the table, pictures of jaguar anatomy, and ancient temples. Then he walks out. Daimio forces himself to stand, and follow right behind him. 

Hellboy corners him as they exit the conference room, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder. Daimio slips out of his grasp, but remains there in the hallway, staring up at him, tied by the loose strings of understanding that hang between them.    
“I’m sorry, man.” He shakes his head. He still won’t look Daimio right in the eye. “Look, I get the whole world ending destiny stuff. If you need to talk ab-”

He cuts him off. “Thanks. But I’m fine.” 

He’s not even sure why Hellboy was invited to this meeting. It feels like the handing over of a death sentence should be something private. Maybe the demon invited himself. Hellboy doesn’t move for a minute, just stares at him, 

The clear difference between the two of them hangs in the air. Hellboy’s great apocalypse will kill everyone on earth, but he will be left to rule. Daimio’s won’t just kill the entire population, but also rip his own identity away and kill him in the process. 

He’d rather know who he was while it happens. 

* * *

It comes in the middle of the night, and on what had been a particularly peaceful night too. No pain, no stress, but he’s woken up by the upsettingly familiar feeling of his spine trying to punch through the skin of his back. 

He stumbles out of bed and over to the bathroom, where he keeps the shots when he’s not on a mission. He comes to a stop in front of the mirror, staring at what used to be his face. 

Massive yellowed fangs push their way out of his skin, slicing through his lips and making it impossible to close his mouth. His scars are bleeding, red blood trickling down his face to stain his new teeth. He reaches up to touch them without thinking, and his hand comes into sight, fingers bent at unnatural angles, forced into an approximation of a claw. They’re longer than they should be. And his fingertips are stained like he’s dipped them in paint, or in blood. They’re a bright, brilliant, Hellboy red. 

He fumbles with the shots, his new claws slicing through his palms and spilling even more blood on the tiled floor of the bathroom. He jabs them into his outer thigh, and any sting is hidden by the pain as he shreds his own face with his fangs. 

The shots don’t kick in immediately, and he feels panic work its way through him. He stays there, leaning over the sink, eyes squeezed shut so he doesn’t have to look at the horror of his face. He can hear blood dripping into the sink. After what feels like hours, he opens his eyes. His teeth had shrunk back to normal, though his hands are still reddened and his scars are open, though no longer bleeding. He sleeps there on the bathroom floor for the rest of the night. 

The next morning, his face looks as good as it ever does, though the scars are noticeably red and inflamed. His fingers are still red, though, fingernails torn and blackened. He pulls on gloves with shaking hands, hoping no one will notice something is wrong. 

* * *

Some sort of spider demon, a skinned human head thing atop eight horrific legs, has them trapped. Hellboy has been stuck to the wall by disgusting wet web things. Alice’s gun is across the room and she can’t punch the soul out of this thing. 

Hellboy looks over to his right. "Daimio- you need to shift."

"Are you insane?" the agent shouts back. 

They both know it's becoming harder and harder to shift back. Hellboy feels guilt like a fist around his heart. Even if Daimio doesn’t force the change, the stress of this will make it happen. 

The spider demon thing takes a step closer. The scars on Daimio’s face start weeping blood. He shuts his eyes. 

It’s like his skin is being peeled off as the jaguar forces its way out. Limbs break, and there’s more blood than Hellboy has ever seen, and he’s seen a lot of blood. It’s over in maybe five seconds. 

The jaguar is bigger than it ever has been, limbs longer than Hellboy is tall. It's a burnt red color, like its fur has been stained with blood. It’s on the demon in an instant, ripping into it with teeth and claws. It tears the spider’s legs to shreds and swallows its head in a single bite. Then it sits down on top of the thing’s corpse and begins to lick itself clean. 

"Hellboy," Alice whispers, still staring at the jaguar. It stares back at them, and he can't see a bit of Daimio in its eyes. Its muscles tense, and Hellboy knows it's about to pounce. He leans away from Alice, as slow as he can. 

"Daimio! Hey- man, stop!" he shouts, waving his free arm. It relaxes, he hopes at hearing the name. Alice pulls out a small knife and begins to cut Hellboy free. The jaguar makes no move to stop them, twitching in a way he hopes means a shift back is imminent. 

In a similar span of seconds, The thing has folded in on itself, leaving a naked, shivering, and bloody Daimio on the floor. Hellboy lifts him up. 

* * *

It was only a matter of time before it got out inside of BPRD headquarters. They’ve all known it, but still, when it happens, it’s still a surprise. 

“Has anyone seen Daimio? We could use another set of hands here!” a BPRD agent shouts, backing down the corridor, gun still trained on the creature in front of him. 

“Um,” Hellboy frowns at the thing in front of him, at its spots, at the deep scars running down the side of its face, at the dog tags caught between its claws, and feels his throat close up. “I think we’re looking at him.” 

“What?”

He takes a step forward, smaller hand out. “Hey, good boy, good kitty.”

The thing snaps at his hand and Hellboy jerks, nearly falling over backwards. He chooses to think of that as the thing’s equivalent of one of Daimio’s annoyed comebacks. It doesn’t move to attack him immediately, but he doesn’t want to count on that as anything other than luck. 

He can see guys moving down the hallway behind the thing, guns out. He can’t assume those are tranq guns, but at this point, there’s nothing he can do about it. 

“You’re a good cat, huh?” he says, wiggling his fingers at it. It growls back at him, a rumble that feels like the entire earth moving, jarring his bones. It takes a step towards Hellboy, before a dart buries itself in its back. 

It jerks back, turning around, with a roar that makes his ears begin to bleed. The other agents fire wildly in a panic, and more and more darts sink into its skin. 

It has ripped the limbs off three men, and turned the hall into a blood soaked mess by the time it keels over. The drag it down the hall, guns still raised, and Hellboy watches his hope of seeing Daimio again go with them. 

* * *

The thing in the cage is huge, bigger than Hellboy, as big as a giant. He can’t imagine how it used to be the size of a human, how it came from within Daimio. The scariest part of watching it pace around the cage is that he can’t imagine how it could ever shrink back down into a human again. 

It's blood red, the same shade as Hellboy's skin, no longer the golden fur he had seen the first few times Daimio had shifted. He can make out the shadows of jaguar spots but other than that, he would never look at this thing and think, yeah, that's a jaguar. It's head is too long and it's eyes are pitch black. And man, it has so many damn teeth. 

Its tongue snakes out to lick its teeth and face, tasting the blood of BPRD agents, Daimio’s friends. 

Alice reaches up to put a hand on Hellboy’s shoulder. “We’ll get him back, you know.”

“I’m not even sure he’s still in there to get back.”

Alice forces a smile onto her face and doesn’t look at the monster. “Then we’ll find him, wherever he is, and bring him back.” 

The jaguar blinks at them, and Hellboy is hit with the feeling it understands every word they’ve said. 


End file.
